His mother gave him a queer look.
"What's that?" she asked him sharply. "In a tree? What did he look like? Was he red?"
"He was grayish and he had black rings around his long bushy tail; and his long pointed nose stuck out from under a black mask."
"Nonsense!" cried Nimble's mother. "You didn't see a Fox. You saw a Coon!"
Nimble was puzzled.
"You told me once," he reminded his mother, "that a Fox was a sly fellow with a bushy tail and a long pointed nose. And this person in the tree had——"
"Yes! Yes!" said his mother. "Now listen to what I say: A Fox is red. And his tail has no rings at all. And Foxes don't climb trees."
"Yes, Mother!" was Nimble's meek answer.
He was glad to learn all that. And he was glad, too, that his mother hadn't asked him how he happened to stray off alone into the woods.